At the risk of being the most boring person at the Christmas party, we just have to ask: can you believe how fast this year has gone?
To wrap up 2012, we’re sharing with you the year’s top five Nextness posts. The ones that got the most shares, mentions, buzz – in short, the most attention. In reverse order:
5. Customer experience is the new brand.
We are living out our careers on shifting sands. But from here, in our offices and behind our desks, it’s easy to lose sight of just how big these changes are. ‘Shifting’ doesn’t quite capture it.
With this post that’s still getting shared and quoted around the internet, DT Digital’s Phil Whitehouse took out the inaugural Nextness Prize
4. What is a copywriter? Should I be one?
Every 2-12 months, I get an email from an acquaintance or friend-of-friend’s sibling, enquiring about the day-to-day of being a copywriter (or, more broadly, an advertising creative). I’m not an industry genius or veteran. But, they don’t know that, so I pretend. Who else are they gonna email? Don Draper?
Guest poster James Ross-Edwards gave aspiring ad creatives “some unqualified answers.”
3. Left Brain versus Right Brain.
Every single person in every agency or every organisation must be as creative as they can be… and as farsighted and strategic. There’s no science in the world to support a belief that some people get to do the ‘fun’ jobs and some people don’t. Let’s not use crappy science to keep our agency colleagues in their place.
In this piece, we tackle one of the most persistent and pernicious pieces of pseudoscience in the communications industry.
2. #socialmediatheories.
Photoshopping your party/holiday pics is vain. But applying a filter to or Snapseeding your iPhone pics is creative. Instagram is like Twitter in that you can follow strangers without feeling like a creep. Everyone prefers to be the added not the adder on Facebook.
We shared observations of behaviour and norms on leading social networks in a post that was later republished on Daily Life.
So what was our top blog post? It was this one that struck that biggest chord with readers:
1. Introverts in ad agencies: a helpful guide.
Unlike extroverts, introverts are most stimulated and do their best thinking when they’re alone. But how often does that happen in an agency environment? Given our industry thrives on creative and original ideas, it pays to let introverts do their thing.
Introverts everywhere were pleased to have a light shone onto their untapped powers – and – to their credit – in embracing and sharing this post, extraverts proved themselves keen to understand their quieter colleagues.
We’ll be going a bit quiet on the blog over the holidays to give you all a well-deserved rest. (Though we’ll continue to curate Linkness and the @STWnextness Twitter; the internet never sleeps so why would we?)
But in the meantime: have a wonderful Christmas and thank you for reading.